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Free Literature Study Guides
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Free Literature Study Guides
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Fleance Quotes

FLEANCE: The moon is down; I have not heard the clock.
BANQUO: And she goes down at twelve.

– William Shakespeare

Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 1. The moon has set, it is around midnight, and it’s the perfect time for the murder of the King. In this scene a foreboding atmosphere is created, foreshadowing what is to come. The moon is personified when Banquo describes it in female terms.

Fleance his son, that keeps him company,
…Must embrace the fate
Of that dark hour.

– William Shakespeare

Macbeth, Act 3, Scene 1. At the end of this scene, Macbeth chillingly explains to the murderers that not only must Banquo die, but his young son Fleance should share the fate of that “dark hour.” As it turns out the boy is fated to survive Macbeth’s hired thugs.

O, treachery! Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly!
Thou mayst revenge. O slave!

– William Shakespeare

Macbeth, Act 3, Scene 3. As Banquo is being killed by the murderers sent by Macbeth, he speaks these words to Fleance. He urges him to run to safety, so that he may one day revenge his father’s death.

Thou art the best o’ the cut-throats: yet he’s good
That did the like for Fleance: if thou didst it,
Thou art the nonpareil.

– William Shakespeare

Macbeth, Act 3, Scene 4. Macbeth compliments one of his thugs on being the best of the murderers on learning that he cut Banquo’s throat. Macbeth shows no remorse for arranging to have his best friend killed – the ultimate betrayal. He goes on to tell the murderer that whoever can cut the young Fleance’s throat is a cutthroat without parallel. This tells us how important it is to Macbeth that Fleance dies.

But now I am cabin’d, cribb’d, confined, bound in
To saucy doubts and fears.

– William Shakespeare

Macbeth, Act 3, Scene 4. Macbeth is filled with fear and doubt on hearing that Fleance has escaped the murderers sent by him to kill Fleance and his father. His feeling of unease and confinement comes after the First Murderer reports: “Fleance is ‘scaped.”

There the grown serpent lies; the worm that’s fled
Hath nature that in time will venom breed,
No teeth for the present.

– William Shakespeare

Macbeth, Act 3, Scene 4. Macbeth has just learned that Banquo has been murdered but his son Fleance escaped. Using metaphors to compare Banquo to a snake and Fleance to a worm, Macbeth comments that the son will in time grow into as big a threat to him as his father.